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Provost’s Long View: Responding to your feedback on UCL 2034

Welcome back to the summer term; I hope you all had a good
Easter weekend and perhaps the opportunity to relax for a few days over the
break.

I managed to achieve a lifelong ambition to scale Scafell
Pike (albeit via a well trodden footpath) in the Lake District and enjoy the
most scenic of views.

Given the intensity of the job as Provost, I have concluded
that being physically fit will be helpful in keeping the mind clear and focused
on the term ahead. There is certainly much to do.

In my experience, the summer term always seems to fly by, as
students get deeply involved in their revision and exams.

Over the break, I also took the opportunity to read all of
the feedback with respect to the UCL 2034 strategy consultation.

Thoughtful responses

First and foremost, a huge thank you to everyone – staff,
students, council members, alumni and friends of UCL – who came to the open
meetings, responded in writing, or used the web-based feedback system.

Many of you have given a great deal of your time and put in
a significant amount of personal effort into some very thoughtful feedback, and
for that I am very grateful.

Top marks go to the sabbatical officers of UCLU who provided
a wonderful set of very helpful comments that will definitely help shape the
future of UCL. Again, a huge thank you from me, even though there are a few
points on which we may have to disagree.

I also received some great comments from key and
distinguished members of our alumni.

Finessing the
language

I thought it would be helpful to update you all on the nature
of that feedback and to describe what happens next. I think it would be fair to
say that the consultation draft needs pepping up a bit and it possibly suffered
from being written by committee.

In particular, it is clear that we need to be less wordy,
exhibit better skills in the English language and be more straightforward,
especially in respect to the vision and mission statements.

The UCLU officers were pretty clear in their views – our
vision should more simply be “to make the world a better place”, both globally
and more locally in London. Indeed – we will listen to that clear steer.

Broad support

The good news is that most respondents liked the style and
the content of the UCL 2034 strategy and I think it is clear that the next
draft will retain the current principal and enabling themes.

Most also enjoyed seeing how this all fits together and said
how the one-page summary helped them to see the overall bigger picture. The use
of the portico and indicative colours helped all to navigate their way round
the strategy – but it would seem that the black background and vivid colours
need some attention!

Everyone seemed to agree that we will need an accessible and
‘lively’ form of the strategy readily available on our website. It also needs
to be punctuated with living examples of our success that reflect the diversity
of our institution.

All of that will emerge as we focus, in the next phase, on
building the web-based version.

Further development

For the remainder of this article, I am going to focus on
feedback about the principal themes. We asked the simple question of whether
anything was missing or whether anything needed greater emphasis. Some felt it
was too business- and enterprise-oriented; others felt not enough. Well, we did
ask!

There was a very clear request to give more emphasis to
ethical considerations in our activities and partnerships – this was perhaps
implicit, but obviously needs to be more explicit in the next version.

Some felt that we should also be more explicit in
identifying different types of students and being clear that undergraduate,
postgraduate taught and postgraduate research students and international
students (of all levels) warrant more specific attention in the document, and I
agree with these points.

Emphasising widening
participation

There was also a request to strengthen the emphasis on
widening participation and the diversity of our student intake, which arose
from concerns that we pay less attention to this set of issues as we recruit
international students (particularly with respect to “ability to pay”).

Clearly, this is a complex set of issues, but we have heard
the concerns.

Many felt that we should make more of public engagement, our
museums, collections and library and, in particular, our interaction with, and
contribution to, our local and neighbouring communities – a point well made.

Although we are a major global player, we must be conscious
of, and integrated with, our local community – using our expertise to make it,
too, a better place to live for all, with a clear sense of our contribution to
social equity in London.

Reconciling local and
global

Some seemed worried or confused by how we could have a focus
both on our role in the future of London and being “London’s Global University”.
Personally, I don't see any such dichotomy.

One of the best things we can do for London and its future
is to be as global as possible. What do I mean by “global” in that context
(remembering that the phrase predated me and is widely used across UCL – just
look at our signage for example)?

To my mind, a global university needs to have the very
highest intellectual and academic performance in education, research,
innovation and enterprise that measures up against the world’s best.

It also needs a significant number of staff and students
from all over the world and a proud history of international collaboration with
significant international activities and partnerships with many different types
of organisation from across the world – including other universities,
governments, ministries, non-profit organisations, corporations and business.

A global university also needs to prepare all of its
students (home/EU and international) for an ever more globalising world. We
tick all of those boxes and it is our intention to bring all of that to bear
on, ultimately, making London and our world a better place for all.

For now, the “in London, of London and for London” phrase
survives the cutting room floor – and to be clear it wasn’t my original idea!

Moving beyond
rhetoric

I have saved the best to last. There is very clear and
widespread support for the emphasis on improving student education and the
student experience with a clear recognition that this can’t be just rhetoric.

We need a wholesale change of culture to ensure that we put
students and their education at the centre of our daily activities and make
them as important as our research. We really do need to be truly excellent at
both, and almost all agree that one way to do that and really inspire our
students is to give them a more connected research-based experience.

I was delighted to find such an extensive level of support
for this very central concept of UCL 2034.

Next steps

The UCL Strategy 2034 consultation remains open until the
end of May, culminating in a major discussion at Academic Board. We will then
rewrite the near final version and this will go to Council in July for
discussion and, I hope, approval.

If you have something to say – please do – there is still a
chance to influence the future of UCL.